The benefits of muscle exercises directed at the upper torso of a user are well known. For example, press exercises directed at the strengthening of the muscles of the upper torso after injury or surgery are well known in their ability to strengthen the muscles, to prevent atrophy of the muscles and return the muscles to normal operation. Further, press exercises are well known for their ability to increase performance, strength, and/or enhance the appearance of one's body. Various press exercises have been developed to exercise the muscles of the upper torso, most of which involve contracting and/or extending one's arms against a resistant force, the resistant force provided by an exercise apparatus.
Although previously developed press exercise apparatuses are effective, they are not without their problems. In a typical embodiment of previously developed press exercise apparatuses, a pair of press arms is coupled to a resistance source, such as a stack of weights. In operation, the user grasps a handle of each press arm and presses the handles outward from the chest of the user to exercise the muscles of the upper torso. Inasmuch as the press arms are restricted to paths extending perpendicularly outward from the chest, the press exercise apparatus fails to permit the user's hands to move inward toward one another during the exercise, in a more natural motion.
A few of the previously developed press exercise apparatuses have addressed this limitation by permitting inward movement of the press arms along a single selected, predetermined path. However, these press exercise apparatuses are not without their drawbacks. For instance, although the press exercise apparatuses allow inward movement, they do not allow the user to configure the press exercise apparatus such that press arms will follow a specific predetermined path selected from a multitude of different predetermined paths. Thus, the user is unable to choose a specific predetermined path that provides optimum comfort, a desired focus of the exercise upon a specific muscle or portion of a muscle, or an optimum orientation of the predetermined path relative to the specific body size of the user.
Previously developed press exercise apparatuses often permit a user to adjust a position of a seat in relation to a rest position of the press arms. Further, previously developed press exercise apparatuses permit the adjustment of the positions of the rest position of the press arms. In some of these devices, though, a user must separately adjust the position of the seat and the rest position of the press arms, resulting in an iterative adjustment process. More specifically, when a user adjusts the position of the seat, the user's orientation relative to the rest position of the press arms is changed, thereby necessitating the user to readjust the rest position of the press arms. Once the rest position of the press arms is changed, the readjustment of the seat position may be necessary. Thus, such adjustment can be an iterative process that can be awkward, time consuming, and frustrating for a user.
Previously developed exercise apparatuses often utilize adjustment mechanisms for adjusting a separation distance between a first part of the apparatus and a second part of the apparatus, to adjust some aspect of the operation of the press exercise apparatus. Previously developed adjustment mechanisms, while permitting a separation distance between a first part and a second part to be varied, permit the distance to be varied even when the adjustment mechanism is under a load. Thus, when a user manipulates the adjustment mechanism to alter the separation distance, the load can be suddenly and undesirably released.